Grenadiers (A possible new way to give them viability)

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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Aight look. The underlying assumption here is that granadiers were soldados. This is not the case - at some point line infantry carried grenades, true, but for similar reasens ss to why modern soldeirs have sidearms.

Actual grenadiers were a very old branch of old armies that used primarily grenades and then had swords as side arms. This troop was older that actual muskets and was used in siege warfare, or anywhere else with ample cover that minimized the threat of cavalry charges.

They were pretty useful as dedicated siege units cuz the countered cover, which countered guns and horses but thats really hard to translate into the AOE series.

My two cents to the idea pool:

Id reccomend increasing theyre ranged attack rate to 1.5 s - since lobbing grenades is faster that loading a musket or xbow - reduce the ranged splash to 1, and change the resistance to vs 10 melee, 20 range and 20 siege.

Incendiary grenades doesnt increase splash but gives a bigger bonus vs buildings (especially defensive ones) and also #### + 0.5 vs artillery. New tech Shrapnel for all which grants + 0.5 vs infantry.

Grenade lancher reduces attack rate to 2.0 s, but adds +2 range, +2 splash area, and + 20% damage boost. Also enables cover mode.

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Unbenannt
Unbenannt1300×496 104 KB

Here’s a fully upgraded Fire Thrower (with Malta that means a full deck sent) and a fully upgraded generic Grenadier. The Firethrower just trades hp for attack and range and it also has a multipler against infantry and also causes lingering damage on top of the high damage it already does. Even if you tag the Grenadier as light infantry it won’t be as good as the fire thrower with rockets, simply because of range. I think we can try turning Grenadiers into light infantry, maybe with a slight hp nerf in that case, but why not look into it?

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The problem is reconciling their historic role as heavy infantry with their in game role aligning with light infantry.

A new siege infantry tag that replaces the siege unit tag for all infantry units that currently have it could help Grenadiers and a lot more. Multipliers could be as follows:

buildings x0.5 vs siege infantry
light infantry x0.75 vs siege infantry
artillery x0.75 vs siege infantry
cavalry x1.33 vs siege infantry

This would offset some of the damage skirms are dishing out with CIR and let them still be vulnerable to cavalry even if they could dish out damage more in line with other heavy infantry.

Units like Huaracas and Arrow Knights would hold up better against artillery and skirmisher masses. Units like Flamethrowers, Mantlets, and Rams wouldn’t be so easily sniped by artillery.

The siege unit tag could maybe even be replaced entirely and tags like siege cavalry and siege ship could cover the other units.

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If they are light infantry they are unkillable. Cavs not always can get close to them. With anti cav protection. Theybwill beat musk beat skirm beat buildings, for otto also cannons. Then civ without cannons won’t kill them . Civs with no cannons already dont kill skirms fast, but at least skirms dont beat skirms or buildings

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That would be a major buff to all european civs. They will need nerf if like that, like do something to take away a card slot

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I like grenadiers the way they are, I actually find them better than cannon because they can’t be sniped by culverines and they don’t need to redeploy and if they get attacked by cavalry theres a chance at rescuing at least half of them. Oh and the AOE is higher.

They’re also great to get early game and very useful as shipbound raiders. The only frustrating part about them is they need an artillery foundry to train and upgrade.

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In an old mod I made I actually split the grenadier in 2 units: an expensive, 2 pop heavy infantry that gained a grenade charged attack through the incendiary grenade tech (the soldado turned to be very similar to my heavy grenadier), and I tweaked the original grenadier to be a type of anti-infantry light infantry.

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For now lets just add some age 2 gren shipments to the civs that have them as regular units and go from there.

They have potential as is in age 2 since they can trade well vs all age 2 infantry, but the time it takes to get a good mass going is enough for the other player to prepare any counter they want - masses of cav + light infantry or even an easy ff into falcs.

The case is that you can make grens to counter a pure infantry all in but on the offensive, they’re so slow they just run into a bigger pop of they’re hard counters.

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The [Incendiary Grenades] technology could instead give the [Grenadier] a charged ability where they will occasionally throw or launch an incendiary grenade that will cause a fire when hitting the ground, which will spread out to a certain radius and last there for a limited amount of time, thus damaging any enemy unit that continues to be inside of this fire.

In other words, what I am suggesting is that the [Grenadier] could have the ability to deal area denial damage with the [Incendiary Grenades] technology.

I made a post last year where I suggested that the [Mortar], [Monitor] and their other counterparts could have an area denial ability through researching a new technology called the “Carcass Shot” that would be available from the [Arsenal] building and through other means for non-European civilisations.

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Tbh the concern here is twofold- many people are like “why cant my civ have an s tier resistence ignoring 3 counter to 2 being counter uber unit age2” when forgetting they have an entire civ designed with s tier options they arent considering. Brits have age2 musk almost age3 stats ans good cav. France and germany solid age2 cav. Russia het strelets and spain trades meh age2 for incredible age3 or logi spam of archaic units. Italy get mercs. Etc. Giving these civs a straight up busted unit that on age2 shreds buildings xbow AND musk would basically gg anyone without age2 cannon(aka swedes) or some sort of incredible anti infantry cav (TAD civs). Basically destroys age2 being mostly limited options and rock paper scissors.

2, most civs have limited age2 siege for a reason. Pikes are only good vs cav and buildings to allow counter play, having a batch of grens slows down rushes so some civs that require infrastructure to actually get up before defending. Uber anti all inf grens allows you to run over civs like dutch or ports with ease. Currently grens are nice to add to turtle busting but not op at all.

Not every unit needs to be op or used every single match. I’ll mix in grens to deal with caro balls for example when the aoe damage can really be cost effective (also good way to subvert lifeguard) or follow up early game pressue as brits or otto with grens. The trend that units need to hard counter half of some civs rosters aside, the question shpuld be how do we make grens fun? Adding the grenade launchers automatically to guard or the card giving free guard or vet could help for example QoL while not instantly breaking game dynamics. Imho

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What would happen if they acquired the ability to snare from distance with this upgrade?

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That’s actually a great idea and it would address one of their viability issues, specially early on. I would however only be in favor if we give their semi-equivalent, the Chinese Flamethrower who suffers from the same problem, the same ability through this card (no more new cards please the deck is already so full).
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Or

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Then how does non european civs counter them?

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Well, maybe it is necessary to ask a question: what is the function of the grenadiers?
In theory they are “light artillery”. Therefore they should obey the artillery counter rules: be strong against infantry and buildings, at the same time vulnerable to cavalry.
I don’t know if they fulfill this role well with current statistics, and I think units that combine the role of grenadier and musketeer should be reworked to avoid confusion.

So my suggestion is to give grenadiers some traits:

High hitpoints;
Musket attack and saber attack with base damage relatively close to that of a standard musketeer, BUT WITHOUT ANY KIND OF BONUS;
Charged grenade attack with bonus against general infantry. It would have negative bonus against cavalry and artillery.
No bonus siege attack but high damage.
It would keep the Infantry tag so it could be countered by cannons.
It would lose the heavy infantry tag, to no longer be fought by skirmishers.
Dragoon-type units would gain a 2x bonus against Grenadier-type units, to emulate the effect it has against other artillery.
Thus, the unit would fulfill the initial function for which it was designed, of cheaply replacing the use of cannons, sharing the same advantages and weaknesses of artillery.

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Area damage is very strong as we have seen with the Giant Grenadiers and some brit late-game card stacking. They are supporting units that are worse against infantry and cav but destroy buildings better than other units. I think that is fine. Maybe they should be made into 1 pop light infantry but still poor against infantry and cav while having high siege. Similar to cannons, it really is fine if they are only supporting units.

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Perhaps they could have some special ability when upgraded that mixed with other infantry units, musk and skirm they give an added bonus on damage dealt.

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Increase the base health to 300, give them the ability to do damage promo and the ability to build med camps, I think these changes would make them much more viable. :slightly_smiling_face:

In the case of the grenadier on horseback, I think he should be able to build camps where he can train revolutionaries, gauchos and mounted grenadiers, I also think that the mounted grenadier should have an extra card that improves his health and damage by 25%. :smile:

The giant grenadier seems like a good unit to me, maybe it should cost 3 population instead of 2, but I’m not sure. :sweat_smile:

I would like the devs to give grenadiers the same treatment as warships, give them some card or something that makes them unique. :slightly_smiling_face:

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31

I’m all for giving Grenadiers a revamp.

What role are they actually for?
Do they have a clear, cookie-cutter purpose?

These are questions are often asked, since the original AoE3, as there are units that have always had clearly-defined roles and Grenadiers ain’t one!

I’ve got specific artillery to take out buildings reasonably safely, I’ve got specific artillery to take out artillery and I’ve artillery that does a swell job of taking out infantry. I’ve even have Heavy infantry that do a reasonable job at seiging buildings but with the vulnerability of having to get close and being a good target for artillery. Grenadiers occupy an odd place in that they are just as vulnerable as their Musketeer/Pike buddies but have better range for siege along with area of attack. That’s it.

Why don’t re-tool them into being what they’re meant to be? Elite Musketeers with great seige.

In-game they should be seen as the ‘super’ musketeers and your elites - same musket range and attack as the standard Musketeer, however better melee damage, health and of course the grenades, which are solely seige attack items only. They still should be expensive compared to Musketeers and take 2 pop. This way they have a clearly defined role - your elite heavy infantry. They are too expensive to make solely over your Musketeers and take up valuable pop space, however having a few mixed in with your muskets would bolster that force plus give additional seige damage.

With this in mind:
Why build Musketeers then, if Grenadiers do a better Heavy Infantry role? Because they’re a lot cheaper and take less space! These guys are the bread and butter. You can field a bigger army of Musketeers than Grenadiers.
Do the Grenadiers fill a niche now? Yes, it’s the ‘does everything’ unit - if you have the resources and plenty of houses, why not train up a Heavy Infantry unit that does everything a Musketeer does, can defend itself better from cavalry and is far better taking down buildings?

Obviously as an Elite unit and balance in mind, they shouldn’t be the biggest ratio of your infantry forces so expense and pop space are the biggest barriers from having just these guys. Instead of pop space you could even swap the 2 pop for a hard build limit - what ever works for balance.

Combined units like Soldados can remain, though Grenadiers need to ‘top’ them by a small margin. Personally I’d also like to see Grenadiers as a unit availalble to every Euro civ (just as the very Euro forts and factories - all Euros wanted/used Grenadiers) by default but that’s another topic.

TLDR? Optics are wrong - Grenadiers shouldn’t be fleshy artillery units with no defined role - they should be your toughest Heavy Infantry (trainable via the Barracks this time) that out-perform but can never be massed as easily as Musketeers .

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32

I think grenadiers are fine as they are, they do have a clear role.

The only problem is you need a foundry for them, while the rest of your infantry come out of barracks.

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They could also get an anti-artillery bonus like humbaraci, but a smaller one so that humbaraci’s uniqueness remains.

Kinda weird to me that humbaraci stands out as the only counter-artillery grenadier. The Ottoman roster does not really lack an artillery counter.